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filmman
12-07-10, 15:27
Hello,

I am trying to initialise an external USB 2.5inch Seagate 320gb portable drive. When I try to initialise it an error comes up after a few moments stating "Unable to initialize harddisk Error: Create movie folder failed". Have booted pc into gparted and formatted the disc in Ext3 but the same thing happens when I return it to the Solo. Am using VTI Vu+ Solo image and wondering what is wrong. Any help would be much appreciated.

Thank you
filmman

SLOTH
12-07-10, 15:29
Hi mate have you tried formatting in Fat32 or ntfs ?
cheers
sloth

filmman
12-07-10, 15:35
Thanks for quick reply, originally tried it in fat32 and got same thing, not tried ntfs as I thought it wasn't recognised by this system.
filmman.

SLOTH
12-07-10, 15:42
Hi again .
ha its just come to me ...have you tried formatting etc before fitting it ...i read some were this is needed with some hard drives .
Sloth

filmman
12-07-10, 15:50
Yes have formatted it before fitting Fat32. Ext3 and now ntfs - the latter messed the box up but manged to restore from back-up thankfully..

SLOTH
12-07-10, 15:56
Hi mate ...have you looked in here "http://www.vuplus-support.co.uk/showthread.php?860-Please-post-your-working-brand-of-internal-SATA-HDD-and-size" to see if its known to work or to be a problem ?
cheers
Sloth
was it working before you tried to fit it to the Vu + ?

filmman
12-07-10, 16:06
Yes the drive was working with a Technomate before - the link you gave was for internal drives in the Duo however I did look through and my external drive is not mentioned - thanks for your help.
filmman

SLOTH
12-07-10, 16:13
Sorry i couldnt be more help mate
Sloth

Sicilian
12-07-10, 18:40
Try initialising with the latest official image 4.9, then re-flash with VTI image.

filmman
12-07-10, 21:11
Hi Sicilian, thank you for your advice - tried your suggestion but when back to VTI and try to record it asks to initialize again and I eventually get the message "Unable to initialize harddisk Error: Mount failed.

Any other suggestions?

Thanks in advance
filmman.

filmman
12-07-10, 21:57
Hello again, have somehow managed to get the drive formatted now and changed the path of default movie location to the usb drive and it is recording to there. At the moment timeshift wont work and in the path section cannot change the location of time shift from hdd which I assume is the internal flash. This is obviously not large enough for timeshift to work, is there a way to change this to the usb drive?
Thanks
filmman.

paul362
14-07-10, 08:16
Have you tried deleting all the partitions on the drive and also don,t give it a name via the pc, then plug it into the VU and see if it picks it up then if it does try to initialize it then.

filmman
14-07-10, 11:00
Hello paul362,

Thank you for your suggestion, I now have the drive working ok on the Solo but not certain how I did it - still cannot get timeshift to work though....

regards,

filmman

Sicilian
14-07-10, 13:17
@ fileman have you checked the 'Recording paths' settings?

filmman
14-07-10, 14:15
Yes Sicilian the paths are correct for default movie, instant record etc (/media/usb/movie/) but the path for Timeshift is set at /media/hdd/ which I assume is the internal flash, is this the correct path as it cannot be changed. When I press yellow on remote I get Timeshift not possible - annoying fault.

Regards
filmman

Sicilian
14-07-10, 14:21
Yes Sicilian the paths are correct for default movie, instant record etc (/media/usb/movie/) but the path for Timeshift is set at /media/hdd/ which I assume is the internal flash, is this the correct path as it cannot be changed. When I press yellow on remote I get Timeshift not possible - annoying fault.

Regards
filmman

I'll check mine tonight and report back.

Data
15-07-10, 17:36
I have the solo with the latest vti image on it I have tried 6 different sata discs with no final solution. I will try the final 4.9 original firmware then back to the vti image.

filmman
15-07-10, 21:11
Yes DATA I have tried three drives today - formatted in FAT32 and EXT3 but no good so must be something to do with VTI. There must be only a few of us SOLO pioneers at the moment hence the fewer responses I suppose or most are using the original image and are happy with that. Like the box though now I am getting used to it and what it can do and, hopefully, will do further into the future.

Regards,
filmman.

Sicilian
16-07-10, 13:11
I'll defo test this out on mine over this weekend. Been a bit busy last couple of days. I'm almost sure that when I tested recording to USB that I changed my paths for timeshift too, but cant be 100% till I test again.

Sicilian
19-07-10, 08:20
Tested this over the weekend.

I re-flashed fresh with the Solo VTI image.

First I mounted and formated EXT2 a 16GB usb stick as follows: -

Telnet and execute the following commands: -


ls /dev/sd*

Check if your stick is recognized as
/dev/sda
or
/dev/sda1

if your stick is detected only as /Dev/sda it won't work. It must be /dev/sda1

Now unmount the stick: -


umount /dev/sda1

Now format ext2


mkfs.ext2 /dev/sda1

Now re-mount as /media/usb


mount /dev/sda1 /media/usb

Now create a movie folder


mkdir /media/usb/movie

Reboot Solo

reboot

Once rebooted telnet again and check


ls /media/usb

If the folders movie and lost+found are shown. If so, everything should work as it should.

Now Press Menu on remote and change recording and timeshift paths to /media/usb/movie. Press Menu button on remote to switch between filelist and bookmarks. To select /media/usb/movie as a bookmark navigate it and highlight the location then press blue button to add bookmark.

filmman
19-07-10, 15:29
Sicilian, many thanks for all your hard work and all is working fine now with my hard drive connected to the Solo. Perhaps this info could be a sticky? Anyway thank you again and very much appreciated.
Regards,
filmman.

spec119
29-07-10, 22:09
I have had major problems getting a Toshiba 250 gig hdd to work and even after trying the formatting as explained in this thread

(1) the Solo wont boot with the hdd inserted

(2) when you go to hdd initialize all seems OK try a short recording 5 mins and the message is HDD full

Then you get the green crashlog screen not just on this occasion but will keep crashing without reason and you have to flah the box again I suppose it could be the Solo dosent like my Toshiba drive?

Sicilian
30-07-10, 05:45
I have had major problems getting a Toshiba 250 gig hdd to work and even after trying the formatting as explained in this thread

(1) the Solo wont boot with the hdd inserted

(2) when you go to hdd initialize all seems OK try a short recording 5 mins and the message is HDD full

Then you get the green crashlog screen not just on this occasion but will keep crashing without reason and you have to flah the box again I suppose it could be the Solo dosent like my Toshiba drive?

Have you flashed latest image to it and replaced the drivers?

Is the HDD self powered?

Try deleting all partitions on the HDD and creating a primary partition formatted NTSC (as windows) It should be detected and may not actually need initializing.

When you try to boot it do you get anything on the TV screen i.e. an egg timer?

Do you have another USB HDD or large USB stick you could try?

Once this is booting you might need to change the recording paths.

Tepes4
14-08-10, 19:05
Hello,

I have followed your instructions and although i can get the recordings to work but timeshift does not work.

Any ideas?

Thank you...

Sicilian
15-08-10, 09:53
Hello,

I have followed your instructions and although i can get the recordings to work but timeshift does not work.

Any ideas?

Thank you...

Press Menu >

Setup > System > Recording Paths > Make sure the path for timeshift is to your usb stick/hdd.